Evesham iplayer - the Freeview PVR you've dreamt about!

[Bob Crabtree]

Wow! What an exciting product!

May I ask where I can download the owner's manual? Thanks.

Er, not quite sure from you posting whether you've actually read the review!

If not, you're starting point is here:
http://lifestyle.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=7747


Whatever the case, as I point out on page two of the review, we've made the manual available for download here:
http://img.hexus.net/v2/lifestyle/re..._userguide.pdf.

But, and as also pointed out (repeatedly) in the review, the manual is totally inadequate, so you're not really going to learn a whole lot from in.

[MarkRy]

Hi Bob - HD files arrived today. Many thanks.

Wouldnt play on PC either. Blind leading the blind but I downloaded Haali Media Splitter. I understand that this splits the file up and sends the relevant bits to the right decoders. It played fine but with a MainConcept logo (I had downloaded their trial encoder last week). I downloaded ffdshow to get the necessary codec (I think) without a logo and all works well. That said I have a P4 3Ghz and its choppy. Not sure if I had downloaded ffdshow and not the HMSplitter if it would have worked.

Have put them on my USB drive and will watch tonight on the big screen. Those lucky BBCHD trialists - the quality looks fabulous. I really hope this is going to be the norm very soon.

Cheers Bob.

[Bob Crabtree]

Hi Bob - HD files arrived today. Many thanks.

Wouldnt play on PC either. Blind leading the blind but I downloaded Haali Media Splitter. I understand that this splits the file up and sends the relevant bits to the right decoders. It played fine but with a MainConcept logo (I had downloaded their trial encoder last week). I downloaded ffdshow to get the necessary codec (I think) without a logo and all works well. That said I have a P4 3Ghz and its choppy. Not sure if I had downloaded ffdshow and not the HMSplitter if it would have worked.

Have put them on my USB drive and will watch tonight on the big screen. Those lucky BBCHD trialists - the quality looks fabulous. I really hope this is going to be the norm very soon.

Cheers Bob.

Mark,

No sweat!

Have to say, though, that I don't think you are going to get much joy playing these HD files on a P4 3GHz PC unless you have help in doing that from a very decent graphics card.

[moby_matt]

Must say I am a little disapointed after reading the review, Bob. What promised so much just can't deliver...

Will have to get the Humax 9200 (unless you know of a replacement or better model from elsewhere).

Matt.

P.S. Still waiting for the BBC's iplayer a year after the iMP trial...

[Tell]

Well I'm not buying one it came of my purchase list the moment Bob posted up that they had disable BBC HD over the internet. The marketing material on their site at that time, may be even now, propagated that it was for DTT HD reception. I duly reported Evesham to the trading standards people and the consumer association where they now hold my complaint on a database and will use it when researchers look at this product in the future. There you go real progress against companies that don't play it straight. Needless to say Evesham’s product manager never got it touch, they ignored my first email asking for confirmation that it now didn't receive HD DTT yet their web site showed a review where it said it did.

From all I've read the 2GB file limit is a joke for HD recordings so you can't get anything in or out of the box that resembles a programme in length, you can't record HD programmes in the box [they switched that off], so what's the point in it being for HD, it doesn't cut it.

[damianw]

Well I'm not buying one it came of my purchase list the moment Bob posted up that they had disable BBC HD over the internet. The marketing material on their site at that time, may be even now, propagated that it was for DTT HD reception. I duly reported Evesham to the trading standards people and the consumer association where they now hold my complaint on a database and will use it when researchers look at this product in the future. There you go real progress against companies that don't play it straight. Needless to say Evesham’s product manager never got it touch, they ignored my first email asking for confirmation that it now didn't receive HD DTT yet their web site showed a review where it said it did.

From all I've read the 2GB file limit is a joke for HD recordings so you can't get anything in or out of the box that resembles a programme in length, you can't record HD programmes in the box [they switched that off], so what's the point in it being for HD, it doesn't cut it.

I would agree the HD thing was perhaps over played, it really comes down to the fact that it can upscale and it will (I think?) play HD stuff from a USB device. So that side of it isn't the best.

But then why does it matter? By the time terrestrial HDTV is actually available there will be far better devices to use. Far better to judge the iplayer as an SD PVR with networking abilities. It still falls short, but there's not much else out there like it for the money in my opinion.

[MarkR]

Bob, I went the format EXT2 route after much deliberating. Thanks for sending the necessary. Much appreciated.

I do like the netgem's ability to play files. I downloaded a couple of torrents and they play perfectly off the USB drive. No burning / re-encoding to DVD etc or hauling my computer downstairs. I do like that.

OK I have taken another tentative step towards HD. With no access to Crystal Palace I bought a portable 60cm dish and a HD satellite decoder card for my PC for BBCHD and others as they appear. For the moment it will free stand in the garden when there is something I want to record (Not allowed a dish and its a cheap alternative to Sky anyway who I don't like).

At the moment I record (on PC) to USB drive and take recording to play on Netgem. The dish hasn't arrived but it should play perfectly as the demos, you sent, did. I think this will be satisfactory.

Alternatives: There seems to be limited control if streaming content - HD sounds even more probematic. I have an 11g network/bridge but from what you said it doesnt sound like its worth the effort.

1) Both these option rely on the recording having completed. This is a shame if it is say live football. I cant think of a way to stream live content to the netgem. There is no media player built into the browser etc. Any thoughts? Live HDTV would be so much better.

2) I am 95% sure but am I right in thinking there is no way to transfer files from a PC to the USB harddrive while its attached to the netgem.

Any ideas gratefully received. Thanks Bob.

[MarkR]

OK I have formatted my USB drive EXT2 using Paragon Partition Manager. I have Ext2 Volume Manager running in the background that sees the drive and Ext2 format and I have named the drive I:

When I look at the drive in Windows, it sees the I: drive but wants to format it.

Could someone please tell me what I need to do next so that I can copy files to it in Windows and ultimately copy other files back.

Many thanks in advance,

Mark

OK I ran Ext2IFS and that seems to have solved the problem. Is this the right way?

One last thing. When I formatted the drive 299gb, it says 230gb is free and 60gb used. There should be nothing on it and I have looked and there is one empty lost+found folder. Not sure why 60gb is used. Any ideas? Ta.

[chrestomanci]

OK I have taken another tentative step towards HD. ... I bought a portable 60cm dish and a HD satellite decoder card for my PC for BBCHD and others as they appear.

Which card did you use? Could you post a link?

The reason I ask is that it needs to be a DVB-S2 recever and those are quite rare.

2) I am 95% sure but am I right in thinking there is no way to transfer files from a PC to the USB harddrive while its attached to the netgem.

No you can't have two devices accessing the same USB storage device at once.

There are specialized PCI cards available that allow a PC to act as a USB slave for another PC. In theory you could use one to enable your receiving PC to emulate a USB storage device and stream the data to the iPlayer. In practice, this would be hard to setup under linux, and virtually impossible under windows.

So Basicaly, No, though you could record the first and second halves of a match in seperate files, and watch the first half while the second is being recorded.

[Bob Crabtree]

OK I have formatted my USB drive EXT2 using Paragon Partition Manager. I have Ext2 Volume Manager running in the background that sees the drive and Ext2 format and I have named the drive I:

When I look at the drive in Windows, it sees the I: drive but wants to format it.

Could someone please tell me what I need to do next so that I can copy files to it in Windows and ultimately copy other files back.

Many thanks in advance,

Mark

OK I ran Ext2IFS and that seems to have solved the problem. Is this the right way?

One last thing. When I formatted the drive 299gb, it says 230gb is free and 60gb used. There should be nothing on it and I have looked and there is one empty lost+found folder. Not sure why 60gb is used. Any ideas? Ta.

Can you now access the disk under Windows (after, presumably, providing it with a drive letter using the likkle app that comes as part of Ext2IFS - Matt Wu's Ext2 Volume Manager)?

If you are not sure what I mean, please look at page 10 of the review.

As for the missing 60GB - really not sure what that's about - you do expect some loss through formatting (though rather more because makers say a drive is 300GB when what they mean is that it is 300x1000MB - and there, 1MB, according to them is 1000KB). But 60GB is WAY over the top.

That lost+found folder is normal and, in my experience, it's empty but you'd be far better of with an opinion from a Linux expert, rather than a greenhorn like me.

[chrestomanci]

... there is one empty lost+found folder. ... Any ideas? Ta.

That is an automatic part of of an ext2 formatted parton. It is there for the partion repair tool (fsck) to put any recovered files it finds when you do a disc check.

Don't worry about it. It should be empty, unless you have just run a disc recovery tool (unlikely)

Disc repair utillites are obviously useful for the main system drive of a Linux system, where there will be millions of files, with thousands open at once, and if there is a power cut, there will be some corruption that needs repair. But with the iPlayer, there will be relatively few large files, and usually only one open at once, so there is little need for disc repair.

[MarkR]

Thanks Crestomanci and Bob. The card is the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR4000
http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/pages/pro...a_hvr4000.html
I don't like hauppauge much. I have had a card of theirs before. Cyberlink Powercinema is pretty clunky but the card seems stable and I have not had it long. When I have my first HD recording playing on the netgem I will comment further on it.

I used to stream TV from my previous card to my ipaq using WMencoder. Netgem doest have a browsing WMPlayer as such. The half time swop is good but not ideal, Crestomanci! Maybe a 10m Component cable out of the window and down to the projector.

That 60mb used is still unexplained. It didnt have any files on it before the format and suddenly 60gb is used. Anyway the good news is that I put a 11GB file on it and it played it. So I am very happy that all my HD recordings do not need to be split. I will have another look at p10. It all got so technical last time I looked that I was not quite sure what people were trying to achieve. Anyway I am happy now and that is thanks to your dvd Bob.

The dish arrived this morning. Couldn't find the satellite. Wind blew over the tripod and snapped the LNB. I am aralditing it at the moment. Not a happy bunny. If the satellite is this difficult to find I think I will only get the thing out for when England is in the Word Cup final. This little set back has made me think that I should have stuck with SD all along. To think I thought I would be watching the rugby and the football tomorrow. Oh well.

Thanks again.

OK, its come good. The glue is holding and I found the satellite. I did a 2 min recording (mpg). At first netgem was temperamental and wouldnt play it. Reboot. It played fine but lipsync was about 4 seconds out, throughout. WMP didnt like the file much either. Need to look into it. Am doing a timed recording of Natural World and Robin Hood and will investigate further. There is an HD movie on Friday. Things are picking up - ever so slightly. Need to read the hauppage/cyberlink manual.

All the DVB-S HD recordings have huge lip-sync errors - any ideas? I dont know what Powercinema is doing but it uses 90-98% CPU time saving the transport stream - even if I am not watching it at the time. That said I believe it is being recorded correctly but the sync info is not there or something. When I play it on the netgem, if I jump a minute forward it seems to start in sync and then somehow goes miles out in a few seconds. Basically audio is all over the place.

I cant judge it on the PC because despite installing the codec to accelarate h.261 with my ATI card, windows does not want to use it. It sticks with a crappy codec which barely works. Can't seem to improve this either.

Any help gratefully received. Thanks.

[MarkR]

Crestomanci (or anyone else for that matter),

I now seem to have a good clean synced DVB-S BBC-HD file (s). xxx.TS stream. Plays well on PC and under analysis looks just like BBC-HD mp2 files sent by Bob. It just wont play on the iplayer. DVB-S SD .ts files will. Any ideas?

Ta in advance,

[chrestomanci]

chrestomanci (or anyone else for that matter),

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

I now seem to have a good clean synced DVB-S BBC-HD file (s). xxx.TS stream. Plays well on PC and under analysis looks just like BBC-HD mp2 files sent by Bob. It just wont play on the iplayer. DVB-S SD .ts files will. Any ideas?

When any PVR plays back a recorded transport stream, it feeds it into it's decoding system as if it came off air. The decode system is tweaked to allow it to play stuff with the wrong time code, but is otherwise unmodified. The problem is that streams from satellite are different from terestral ones. The bitrate is usaly higher, the PIDs are different, (and possibly out of range), the video dimensions might be different etc.

A software player on a PC, is designed to be flexible, because people expect to be able to play anything you throw at it, but the hardware player on the iPlayer (or any other PVR), is only designed to play what comes off air. Hardware players have very low power CPUs, and use dedicated hardware to decode the video and audio streams. Because the CPU is such low power there is little scope to do anything fancy or be flexible.

So basically, unless you want to re-encode the TS recording you have to a format the iPlayer supports, you are probably out of luck.

[MarkR]

Thanks chrestomanci. I'm in luck! Finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think everyone else has returned their STB. Bye. Thanks Bob.

[MarkR]

Back again. No matter how I partition my EXT2 disk about 15-20% is "used" immediately after format. On my 300GB drive this is 50Gb. When I repartitioned at 150GB it at 30gb. Anyone know if this is reserved for system or how to get rid of iot please.

I am using Partion manager 8.0

Thanks